Wholly for Christ
“TTfE never like to find fault with our “authorized version” of the Scriptures, unless we are compelled to do so. But the common rendering of the twelfth verse of the third chapter of Philippians gives a very weak idea of a very strong passage. Paul really means to say, “I press on’7 (for the prize) if I may seize that for which I was seized on by- Christ Jesus.” Dean Alford’s rendering is: “If I may lay hold on that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” Paul realized that the crucified Saviour had grasped him on the road to Damascus and appropriated him to his glorious service. When we contemplate the prodigious vigor and the splendid dialectic skill of the man, we do not wonder that Christ coveted him for the apostolate and “seized on” him by his converting grace.
Bearing this in mind, we understand better why Paul’s motto should have been “this one thing I do.” He lived for one great purpose, and to that he bent all his powers and consecrated all his faculties. In the best sense of the term, Paul was a man of one idea. The “hold” of his intellect (if we may use a nautical simile) was abundantly stowed with resources of learning, argument, and rich mental gifts; but a single holy purpose trod the quarter-deck and floated its ensign from the peak. “Go a little deeper/7 said a wounded French soldier at Austerlitz, to the surgeon who was probing his left side for the bullet —” go a little deeper, and you will find the emperor.’7 So the great apostle might say: Go deeper, go to the inmost core of my heart, and you will find the crucified Jesus. Other feelings I am possessed of, but this one possesses me. Other affections lie near the surface; but this master passion lurks and lives in the inmost centre of my soul. For me to live is Christ. This one thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
All the men and women who have made their mark in this world and have achieved the best results have kept the eye clear and single toward one noble purpose. The master passion with Newton, the prince of Christian philosophers, was science. He attributed his splendid successes in discovery to the simple principle of “always intending my mind “upon the one thing in hand. Luther jarred all Europe by continually hurling the great revealed truth of “justification by faith 7? against its old ramparts of superstition. Such men swing their whole being into one direction. The effective Christian is the man who unites all his powers into a single pile or package, and then binds them round with this strong cord — “the love of Christ constraineth me.” So Paul bound up his, and hurled the mass with such momentum that it burst through, and has come bounding on even into these modern centuries.
A man of moderate talents may achieve blessed results for Christ by concentration, George Muller is a striking illustration. He lives and acts every day as if the loving Jesus had seized on him for a single purpose — viz., to house and feed and instruct thousands of little orphans. Instead of letting his life waste itself into numberless little twigs, he, like a wise gardener, has pruned them off, and allowed the whole sap of his spiritual being to flow into one or two bountiful boughs, laden with precious fruit. I can name, within the circle of my acquaintance, several men and women of wonderful effectiveness for good, who are not gifted with remarkable talents. Their single talent is to love Jesus and to serve him thoroughly. More than half the battle with Moody is that he aims all his powers, every moment, at one target. Alas! how many lives of professed Christians are utterly wasted by being frittered away into scores of channels, instead of being condensed into the single purpose of doing Christ’s will, and thereby being of some service in the world. With all such the pulse of love to Jesus beats low and feebly. They need a reconversion, a thorough pruning away of the limbs which steal the heart’s-blood from their Master. The first step must be the penitential prayer: “Lord, I am a cumberer of the ground. What wilt thou have me to do?” And when they have taken the new departure, let them put their whole soul into it. This process, well begun and well carried out in all our churches, would soon quadruple the power of our Christianity. It would be hard to discover what is the “one thing” for which thousands of church-members are living, unless it be for money-making or some respectable form of self-indulgence.
To “get on” in the world is the upper-* most thought; and if by “getting on” no more is meant than industrious thrift and honest provision for life’s necessities, then is it not only innocent, but commendable.
God’s Word honors industry and frugality. Would that both of them were more practiced as Christian virtues. But, while a Christian is striving to get on, ought he not to be still more earnest in his endeavor to get up? Ought he not to make life’s chief aim to “press toward the prize of a high calling”; to attain to a higher spiritual stature; to ascend toward the fuller, stronger, clearer likeness to his Master? My brother, are you getting up every day?
President Yan Buren is reported to have remarked, when he heard that his son, a lawyer, had married a lady of large wealth: “Well, he is ruined! She is very rich. Now he’ll give up his profession, for which he has great ability, and become merely a rich man — the least useful of human things.” This is too true. Merely to absorb and enjoy a large amount of God’s silver and gold, without holding any of it in trust for God’s service and the good of humanity, is one of the lowest forms of human existence. For a Christian, redeemed by Calvary’s blood, to have no higher aim is treason to Christ and spiritual suicide. I know of wealthy followers of Jesus Christ who consecrate their purses to bountiful charities, and their drawing-rooms to the uses of a Christian sociality and the promotion of Bible philanthropies, and their personal influence to winning sinners to the Saviour. While getting on, they get up, and lift others with them.
This is too wide a topic for a single chapter. But the gist of it lies in this truth: Christ must have the whole heart and give the casting vote in every decision, or else we can not be full-grown Christians. This is the “one thing.” All other things are chaff in the comparison. Write six ciphers in a line, and they amount to nothing. Put the number “1” before them, and they amount to a million. All human talents and possessions are but ciphers until you put the name of Jesus at the head of them. Then they make their owner a millionaire for Heaven.